Post by c.barr » 18.05.2012 23:35:54
Explaination
First, let me just say that I LOVE Dexpot so far! I'm a Mac user at home, and Dexpot make using Windows at work much more fluid, like I prefer at home.
I used Dexpot with just 1 monitor for a while, but decided to add back in my 2nd display. I excluded this display from Dexpot because when using 4 virtual desktops with a 2nd monitor actually gives me 8 desktops, which I find a bit overwhelming! So my issues here are only with how the excluding secondary displays currently work and what I think might be a better way to interact with it instead.
Problems
When a monitor is excluded and I press the "full screen preview" button I've assigned, I expect nothing to happen on the excluded monitor. Instead it zooms out and each monitor shows 4 desktops. This isn't actually even accurate since the 2nd monitor is excluded, it doesn't actually have 4 desktops! Also when I do this, it will completely hide any open windows currently on the excluded monitor.
When I press the "Window Catalog" button, it correctly shows the windows on my 1st display, but just hides all the windows on my excluded display! Why?
Suggested solutions
Instead of entirely excluding a monitor for all features, just be able to exclude it from all features related to multiple desktops. When a monitor is excluded and you switch between desktops, the excluded monitor should have nothing visually happening on it at all! If I zoom out, don't show 3 other desktops that don't exist, and when I use DexGrid, don't show the overlay showing which desktop was just switched to - none of these things apply to the excluded monitor anyway.
Even if I've excluded a monitor, I would find it very useful to still allow the "Window Catalog" feature to apply to all monitors. It's just a way to unstack and see all the windows, so why even allow this to be disabled on a per-monitor basis? At the very least, don't make all the windows on the excluded desktop disappear when Window Catalog is activated.
Final Thoughts
So, in the end I think this offers so much functionality and is extremely similar to how Expose worked on the Mac OS 10.6 (the previous version - which I preferred). I love the idea of being able to exclude certain displays, but I don't feel like the execution of this was done well quite yet (but I understand that it's still in beta).
Good work! I'd love to see these features improved upon, but these thing aside I find Dexpot to be an extremely solid product. Nice work!
[size=150][b]Explaination[/b][/size]
First, let me just say that I [i]LOVE[/i] Dexpot so far! I'm a Mac user at home, and Dexpot make using Windows at work much more fluid, like I prefer at home.
I used Dexpot with just 1 monitor for a while, but decided to add back in my 2nd display. I excluded this display from Dexpot because when using 4 virtual desktops with a 2nd monitor actually gives me 8 desktops, which I find a bit overwhelming! So my issues here are only with how the excluding secondary displays currently work and what I think might be a better way to interact with it instead.
[size=150][b]Problems[/b][/size]
When a monitor is excluded and I press the "full screen preview" button I've assigned, I expect nothing to happen on the excluded monitor. Instead it zooms out and each monitor shows 4 desktops. This isn't actually even accurate since the 2nd monitor is excluded, it doesn't actually have 4 desktops! Also when I do this, it will completely hide any open windows currently on the excluded monitor.
When I press the "Window Catalog" button, it correctly shows the windows on my 1st display, but just hides all the windows on my excluded display! Why?
[size=150][b]Suggested solutions[/b][/size]
Instead of entirely excluding a monitor for all features, just be able to exclude it from all features related to multiple desktops. When a monitor is excluded and you switch between desktops, the excluded monitor should have nothing visually happening on it at all! If I zoom out, don't show 3 other desktops that don't exist, and when I use DexGrid, don't show the overlay showing which desktop was just switched to - none of these things apply to the excluded monitor anyway.
Even if I've excluded a monitor, I would find it very useful to still allow the "Window Catalog" feature to apply to all monitors. It's just a way to unstack and see all the windows, so why even allow this to be disabled on a per-monitor basis? At the very least, don't make all the windows on the excluded desktop disappear when Window Catalog is activated.
[size=150][b]Final Thoughts[/b][/size]
So, in the end I think this offers so much functionality and is extremely similar to how Expose worked on the Mac OS 10.6 (the previous version - which I preferred). I love the idea of being able to exclude certain displays, but I don't feel like the execution of this was done well quite yet (but I understand that it's still in beta).
Good work! I'd love to see these features improved upon, but these thing aside I find Dexpot to be an extremely solid product. Nice work!